Anti-Semitic incidents on rise in Canada: report

[JURIST] Incidents of anti-Semitism [JURIST news archive] in Canada have risen 11.4 percent [text, PDF] since 2008, according to a Wednesday report by B'nai Brith Canada [advocacy website]. The group found that there were 1,264 incidents of anti-Semitic harassment, violence, and vandalism in Canada during 2009. It also said that anti-Semitic incidents increased globally in 2009, linking them to a rise in Middle East strife:

[I]t is becoming increasingly complex to isolate anti-Israel rhetoric, which has been intentionally entangled in antisemitic discourse - from a completely separate, more "traditional" anti-Jewish hatred unconnected in any way to the Middle East conflict.

The group concluded by saying that the combination of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incidents has led to "creeping desensitization towards the defamation and resultant marginalization of the Jewish community," but that the trends should not be ignored.

In March 2009, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) [official website] found that there was a rise in European anti-Semitism incidents [JURIST report] since December of that year. In November 2008, the German parliament passed a resolution [JURIST report] requiring the government to track reports of anti-Semitism in the country and fund education to combat the problem. The Council of Europe released a report [JURIST report] in July 2008 emphasizing the need for European countries to examine their human rights records.

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